Its pretty obvious that not everybody knows what Multiple Sclerosis is. I didn't even know what it was before I was diagnosed, and my aunt had it. Everybody knows someone who has it, but not many know what it is. Its not their fault, they simply just don't know. Everyone isn't obliged to know what every disease in the world is. I used to get angry when people were clueless about MS, but I was being a hypocrite because I didn't know or care about other diseases. I was selfish for my own disease. My expectations were too high for the general public. One of my goals in life is to promote as much awareness and education I can about Multiple Sclerosis. Its a lot easier than just expecting everyone to know what it is through osmosis.
Teachers don't simply just give students a test without at least teaching them the basics of that subject. So we shouldn't judge people's intelligence for random things that aren't relevant to them. The fault lies upon lack of education or exposure on our part. Yes, I said it, it is our responsibility (MS patients) to tell people what MS is. Who better to tell them than those who live with it every day?
I've talked to some people that complain about how there are no commercials for MS compared to diabetes, heart disease, and even erectile dysfunction. The reason why is because there are more products for those diseases, so there will be more commercials. There are 258 million people worldwide diagnosed with diabetes, dwarfing worldwide cases of MS which is estimated to 2.5 million. My point? MS is rarer than all the "popular" diseases out there.
Moral of this story? Don't set the hurdle too high for people to jump over, or else they will just do the limbo.
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